Pictured: dogs and Ford, a perfect match
Photo: Ford Motor Company
If you’re a dog owner, you’ll likely agree that the idea of going places becomes substantially less appealing when you realize you can’t bring your pup. One of the places you’re not typically able to bring your dog is the office, but Ford — in an effort to lure in young tech talents who lurve their dogs — is looking to change that.
According to Automotive News, new Ford CFO Tim Stone had a pretty hard caveat when he came on board: his seven-year-old Australian shepherd, Finley, had to come with him. And so if you were to wander past Stone’s 12th-floor office in Dearborn at any particular point in the day, you’d probably see Finley there by his side.
“He’s got a very clear job description, which is: Spirits high and stress low,” said Stone, who replaced retired CFO Bob Shanks in June. “And he kills it every day!”
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Pictured: Ford CFO Tim StoneNot Pictured: Finley, a good boy
Photo: Ford Motor Company
Finley is part of a new dogs-at-work pilot program that Ford is offering to 1,300 employees. The objective is to make Ford more culturally appealing to young, up-and-coming tech talent that might opt for Silicon Valley opportunities. Stone himself comes to Ford from Snap Inc. and Amazon.
By letting dog owners bring their best buds to work, Ford hopes to attract folks away from the likes of Stone’s former employer Amazon, which topped Rover’s Best Dog-Friendly Companies of 2019 list. While there’s currently no automaker on the list of dog-friendly employers, Stone and Finley look to change that as the dogs-at-work pilot program progresses.
“People know the dog far more than they know me,” Stone said. “It makes the CFO more approachable. It’s amazing how many people I run into and they’re like, ‘Oh, you have a great dog!’”
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Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.
